Category: Israel Elections

Benjamin Netanyahu has appeared in a very amusing political advert in advance of Israel’s General Election in March.

The video features a young couple that is about to leave for a night out when the baby-sitter knocks at the door: Benjamin Netanyahu.

Netanyahu playful responds to the quizzical looks of the couple, saying: “You asked for a babysitter? You got a Bibi-sitter”

“Look, it’s either me or Tzipi and Buji (opposition leaders)” he explains. The couple immediately reply that their children would need to babysit Herzog, and not the other way around.

At the conclusion of the spot the couple return and greet Bibi in a traditional manner “Shalom” (Peace).

“Not unconditionally…” Netanyahu quips.

It’s great to see Netanyahu’s campaign having some fun with their campaign. Political parties too often produce very dry, uncontroversial video content and yet still expect their supporters to pass it around to their ‘non-political’ friends, which needless to say, rarely happens. This is the sort of video that will delight supporters and will find its way on to the mobile phones, computers and TV screens of floating voters.

It’s not without its risks, but nor is anything genuinely worth doing.

The Israel Defense Forces have been running a Facebook page since 2011. During the most recent and ongoing conflict the IDF have been posting creative content communicating updates about their operations and justifying their actions.

The objective of the communications is to get people both inside and outside the reason to understand their response and make sure that their case is being made in the battle on the airwaves.

It’s very well put together and is an interesting example of contemporary propaganda.

As Israel is undoubtedly the topic of the day, here’s the latest Obama electoral parodoy to impact the Israeli elections. The video is a version of ‘Obama Girl’ and is in support of front-running prime ministerial candidate Tzipi Livni. However funny / cringeworthy the video is, such content will be colossally overshadowed by communication that tries to frame how candidates have performed during these grave events.

After the successful election of Obama and his campaign receiving the highest plaudits from anyone with a vague interest in politics or advertising, it was obvious that anyone seeking election across the world would try and borrow a few ideas.

I was wondering how far anyone would push it… Having seen Benjamin Netanyahu’s website, the answer is – REALLY QUITE QUITE FAR. Included in the rip-off are: the colors, the fonts, the icons for donating and volunteering, the use of embedded video, and the social networking Facebook-type options. They didn’t quite stretch to ‘yes we can’, but I’ll bet you a fiver it won’t be long until someone has the gumption to go for it.